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Thanks a lot Crimson. I'm suddenly very glad I asked, since I had no idea camera zoom was a thing (it's seriously been way too long since I've properly used AGS). I'll have to screw around with that and get back to this thread once I do. Now that I know it's doable I'm feeling a lot more heartened about doing this.

Let's say I wanted to create a script that immediately flipped my 1920x1080 room into a 320x240 one on a button press. I'm guessing I would need to switch rooms on said button press - and the new room would be 1920x1080 with a specific camera/viewport? In this case I'll probably be pasting my tiny backgrounds on a huge canvas and just zooming in real close. I've never tested out the viewport stuff so hopefully there won't be any distortion or anything.

Does anyone remember the Monkey Island remaster on Steam? I was thinking about it while developing my game and I thought about how you could flip between the "classic" and "remastered" graphics and sound with just the press of a button. Besides being a really cool visual effect, I started thinking about some ways I could turn that into a gameplay mechanic - by having certain cues, dialogues, and objects only accessible from one "side" (kind of like Super Paper Mario, flipping between a 2D and 3D world) My game is a satire on old skeevy point & clicks like the original Leisure Suit Larries and it does just feel very fitting that the game be able to be played in a very small 320x180 resolution as well as my original 1920x1080 graphics.

I'm pretty well aware my desired effect (switching resolution/graphics in-game) isn't feasible in AGS, so I have a workaround... I'm thinking I upscale all my 320x180 graphics manually in photoshop (the multiple is x6, which gets me to 1920x1080) and just have it *look* like it's switching res without actually doing so.

My question is: is this going to look absolutely godawful on resolutions that are not 1920x1080? I would test it but I don't have any monitor that isn't 1920x1080, and tbh I don't really fully understand how to play with the resolution that well. If anyone has any other ideas on how to go about my gameplay mechanic as well, please let me know. Everything I've searched for regarding changing res mid-game is a few years outdated so I'm not sure if AGS has updated anything like that in the time being.

Completely separate issue now. I'm trying to set up both of these modules in my game because I'm a crazy woman (I'm trying to use them for different purposes...) and Crimson's module is working perfectly while I'm still running into a snag with Phemar's. I'm using the 1.2 version by Dualnames (which I still have saved from a few years ago, actually! I can reupload that here if anyone is interested in having it) and butting up against a wall trying to get it to display on a GUI label. It will bring the GUI up and no text will print at all, but there's a delay as though it is doing it, just not visibly. Afterward, it gives me this error:

https://i.gyazo.com/88640c42d2160ac9f13c13c2c486b730.png

The exact line I'm using is:

Code: ags

Typewriter.Type (600, 600, 3, 6555, eFontDroidSans, "Everybody get up it's time to slam now, we got a real jam going on...", eTypewriter_Constant, eTypewriterDisplay_UIElement, null, eTypewriter_DontFlash, PlayerSpeech);

If I comment out the error line the game doesn't crash, but it still doesn't print any text. Highly appreciate any help!
(And here's the Typewriter version I have: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qzx3zntl20j1lpy/Typewriter%201.2.rar?dl=0)

[edit:]

HATE to necro this old thread but I'm sort of out of options. I've searched everywhere and nothing else I've found can suit my needs like this module can (the sound effect feature in particular is something I find incredibly useful) and I'm essentially having the same issue as the poster above. Here is a visual demonstration:

https://gyazo.com/c2b0b4b381e58d1803e33d69e893d073

The typewriter effect works perfectly, but its coordinates are totally messed up. I'm not really a programmer and I've searched high and low for an alternative but have come up short. I'd really like to be able to use this module, as it's incredibly convenient. I'm fairly certain it's an issue with resolution, as all my lower-res games handle the module just fine. My game is 1920x1080, for reference. Thanks in advance for any help.

I am aware of Crimson Wizard's module here (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=54450.0) but using it gives me the exact same issue. What exactly is going on.

edit: thanks to the help of Crimson Wizard (seriously, I would have had no idea what this was otherwise) this was resolved! Having a custom GUI and the game being set to sierra-style speech screws with these two typewriter modules. I switched back to lucasarts speech afterward and it totally got rid of this problem. How odd.

So, lots of stuff!

Duane's sprite has been updated, but the entire game has been, really. Don't want to say too much else!

At this point, my hope is that the game is out within the next month. I've been sidetracked projects that have far more personal significance, so the game got shoved around a lot, but I'm really looking to settle down and get it all done now.

First off, thank you! These feel like really trivial concerns I'm running into at this point, so I really appreciate you sticking it out with me.

That's good to know. I doubled-checked my videos in Sony Vegas -- everything was fine there, as was the actual rendered .wmv video itself, so I assume it's like you say -- that something went wrong in the conversion. If I play the video itself, it appears to be in the exact same resolution as the game.

Trying to change the setting on PlayVideo doesn't fix it, unfortunately.

And looking closer, there's no black bar on-top at all. That was an error on my part -- the black bar is only on the bottom.

To give a visual example of why this is somewhat of an annoyance, I took a few gifs of the game:
https://i.gyazo.com/31a3fe4a24a7a62399da6775cc34bdec.gif
https://i.gyazo.com/b854857251b105890f071dbcb93cd837.gif

(It's supposed to be ridiculously corny.)

Thank you both! My mistake was thinking the .ogv videos worked the same way as .wmv videos did -- I placed them in the compiled folder, and wasn't sure why gave me that error.

Placing them in the main folder, they worked! The only problem are two very slight black bars on the top and bottom, which make the transition from game-to-video noticeable. With the .wmv files, they were mostly seamless -- from the black-bar standpoint, at least. Is there any way to get rid of those?

A SNES emualtor?
Just... how!?!
Just download the Windows build, or click on this link which should download it for you: http://firefogg.org/nightly/ffmpeg2theora.exe
As for how you convert it. Just drag and drop the video file onto the program. It's as simple as that.

I asked myself the same question! On their website I went to "downloads", and downloaded the "source" rar file. I extracted it, and from that I got a SNES emulator.

Appreciate the link! I was going to say it didn't work, as opening it did nothing, but I realized you literally just drag the files into the .exe. It works perfect now, seemingly! I'll try testing the files in-game.

Edit: It seemed too good to be true, and unfortunately it was.



Damn.

The preview window size is not strictly bound to game native resolution. It is determined by the player's config. That is - even if you make game 800x600 again and it will work well for you, some of your players will still be able to run it scaled up in very large window.
I just want to say, that changing game resolution when you run in a problem like that is a rush and excessive solution.

There are two reasons that could happen to your preview window:
1) You are using alpha version of AGS that has a bug in it, that did not apply configuration properly. We had such problem in AGS 3.4 before, but I think the latest public release (3.4.0.6) has it fixed.
2) You do not choose appropriate settings in cofig. For instance, there is a setting that will try to run your game in largest window possible. If you turn that on by mistake, you will keep getting large window.

I would advise to update to the latest AGS 3.4 version, unless you already did that (in this case we are talking about new bug, which should be investigated); you may also try this: copy acsetup.cfg from Compiled folder into _Debug folder by hand.

If nothing works, please tell which settings exactly do you use to run your game.

I'm using the latest version of the alpha, so hopefully the first possibility is ruled out, then. I'm assuming it's the second part, and I'm almost certain it is. I will go ahead and do that, but I don't think I'll be able to tell now that I changed the resolution back to 800 x 600. I would have stuck with the new resolution (640 x 400) if not for the fact I'd need to redo several more backgrounds of the game, which I'm just fed-up doing at this point. I suppose once I go into the testing phase and distribute the game and the issue persists, I'll let you know!

I looked around the link you gave me, but I'm not very code-savvy, so couldn't make heads or tails of it. I couldn't find any sort of instruction on how to convert the videos, and what I downloaded appeared to be a fully-working SNES emulator. I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong there.

And, I had tried messing around with the winsetup, but couldn't get it to work the way I wanted to on the previous resolution. I ended up going back to 800 x 600, so thankfully that's not a problem anymore.

I make all my cinematics in Sony Vegas 9, and unfortunately I don't believe it has an .ogv format. If it did, I'd definitely take the advice. Thank you!

As for the preview window, the first thing I did was check the settings, but I didn't have any luck playing with them. In the end I think I'm going to go with what I started with -- 800 x 600 -- which means I'll have to redo everything again, but that's my own fault for not backing things up.

So my resolution issue I guess is addressed on account of me being paranoid, but I'm still stuck with the video error.

The past week has been extremely frustrating, in which every technical aspect of AGS and my game have refused to cooperate on every level. The two primary issues have stemmed from both how AGS handles video, and the game's resolution.

Much of my game relies on videos, which I export using the ".wmv" extension. For a long time, they ran flawlessly, but suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, they stopped working. Whenever the game needs to load one, it gives me this error message:



Unsure of what to do and remembering that my previous game (which was done in the 3.4 alpha of AGS) ran .wmv's without an issue, I decided to make the switch and upgrade the game by making it now in the 3.4 alpha. Thankfully, it did work, and my .wmv files ran perfect. Earlier today, however, I decided to test the game in .exe format, and after building the .exe the .wmv files would, again, not work.  It now gives me the same error as shown above.

I have a strong feeling this is related to the .wmv extension itself, but converting them to another format wouldn't quite work. Aside from the larger file size, it would undoubtedly result in a loss of quality. For me, .wmv files are most preferable, so this is a frustrating obstacle.

As for resolution, for the first month I've developed my game I did it in 800 x 600, but then read up that apparently widescreen is a much more preferable resolution. I began to redo everything accordingly in 640 x 480, mistakenly thinking it was widescreen because of its resemblance to 640 x 400 -- which IS a widescreen resolution. A really stupid mistake, I know. Still, I found the game ran perfect in 640 x 480, and 800 x 600, but upon making it to 640 x 400 I began to run into an issue with the test-run (F5) of the game, which would always open it in a much larger preview window. The game would look significantly worse in terms of quality, and I'm sure this is just because the preview is larger, but I don't know entirely. All my backgrounds are in 640 x 400, so it's nothing to do with that. I'm wondering now -- was it worth all the work I did to make it widescreen? Should I go back and start over again?


So, these have been my issues, and I've run into a wall in trying to address them. Any help or insight would be much appreciated!


Edit: Resolution's no longer a problem, but video still is.

Thank you both!

Some updates:
I'm really glad I took the time off I did to come back to the game, as in that time I learned a hell of a lot regarding my own work process, style of writing and storytelling.

After doing some reading, supposedly 800 x 600 was not a good resolution to choose. I'm going to be shifting the whole game to a widescreen resolution, which may take some time.
Edit: Apparently 640 x 480 is NOT a widescreen resolution. I confused it with 640 x 400, and somehow didn't notice all my new backgrounds were the exact same shape as my older ones, except smaller. Extremely frustrating; I'll have to redo everything again.

The game's getting a bit of a graphical shift. It's going to retain its bad-MSPaint-style, but I'm simultaneously looking for ways in which to make it look more aesthetically pleasing.

It's (apparently) taken longer than anticipated to finish the serious project I put off this one for, but now that it's hit a sort of standstill, I feel there's no better time to come back to Duane and work hard at it until its completion. For real.

Major updates coming soon!

Edit: I notice a couple of calls, in Noto's code (35, 42), to other dialogs without the goto stuff. Are his calls an alternate way to do it?

Edit2: I'm getting suspicious about the comment in line 76. It may need to be indented like the script commands are. Might be wrong, and probably should be keeping my mouth shut about stuff I know next to nothing about.

Sorry, I missed these! I haven't actually got to testing that far to see if those (35, 42) work, but as Crimson points out later, now that I think about it they almost certainly won't. And, I don't think there's any problem with line 76, as far as I know.

Oh, I missed that.
It must be noted that it won't work in AGS, unfortunately. Second dialog cannot start while first one is going on.
What will happen instead will be: the current dialog script will be continue running, and the called dialog will start only when the first one ended.
If you try starting several dialogs in a row, only first called one will play (after current one is finished).

The solution could be, possibly, to reorganize this dialog contents into several dialogs called one after another.
I do not think there is a difference between doing "goto-dialog" (dialog script command) and dDialogName.Start() (normal script command).
In any case such commands should be the last command performed in the script.

I'm really glad you picked this up! I'll be looking for a fix to it.

The general issue is that when AGS compiles dialog scripts, it gathers all of them together and converts them into a huge normal script, where one dialog follows another. IIRC the dialogs are "wrapped" into functions themselves.
So, if you have a non-matching IF brackets somewhere in the middle of random dialog, that will break all of them.

I would propose to make a copy of your game, and in that copy just start deleting dialogs one by one until compilation succeeds. That may be the fastest way to at least find out which dialog has a mistake.

As for looking for the mistake inside a dialog, you may try deleting every line except those containing { / } brackets, then count latter down.

This makes a lot of sense, and this looks like the best way of going about trying to fix it. I'll be going ahead and doing that then, I appreciate it!

Thanks everyone!

Thank you so much, everybody. This was such a bizarre problem, and even as I was posting it I had doubts of whether this issue was really stemming from where I thought it was.

I'm really relieved to hear at the very least that it *should* be working fine and as intended normally. That explains why I didn't have any luck searching threads on it.

If you post the code for one of these non-working dialog scripts of yours, I should be able to point out the problem much quicker.
Although right now, I'm starting to think that maybe you've been using functions to move the characters around and do things, inside the dialog scripts. Which if you have, well... there's your problem.

I do have regular code in them, but as Crimson noted they're indented. As for showing an example, I was tentative to provide an example because every single interaction is very long and very intimate in regards to characters in the game. But for the sake of figuring out what's wrong, it's probably best I do it anyway.

Code: ags

// Dialog script file
@S  
   if (Desktop) {
Shane: You're finally ready now?
Will: Yes, Shane, I'm finally ready. 
   }
   
   
Will: And... What?
Will: You want to hear an explanation?
  Wait(30);
Will: Honestly, I wouldn't know where to start.
Shane: A formal introduction may help.
Shane: Although we know each other well enough, don't we?
Will: Sure... I'll go with it.
Shane: Let's start with your name.
Will: Will.
Will: Will Rivlain.
Shane: Your age now?
Will: I'm 26 years-old.
Shane: Why are you here in my office now, Will?
Will: Because I have to be.
  Wait(40);
Will: Because I... Relapsed.
Shane: Why did you relapse?
Will: Because I couldn't cope.
Will: I still can't.
  Wait(120);
Will: I'm sorry, I'm just getting my thoughts together.
  
    if (Fantasy == false) {
Shane:  We don't really need to do this right away. Do you need some time to walk around a bit?
  Wait(10);
  Triedonce = true;
  dExtratime.Start();
  
    }
    
    
    if (Fantasy) {
Shane: If you're really not up for starting yet, maybe you should take some more time to clear your head.
    dExtratime.Start();
    Triedonce = true;
  
    }

 
  if (TherapTalk == 1) {
  

Will: God...
  Wait(20);
Will:  Okay...
  Wait(20);
Will: Okay.
Will: You probably see lots of different patients.
Will: You see, from my vantage point, there are also different kinds of junkies.
Will: There are the kind that live on by spur-of-the-moment nirvana highs and rock-bottom lows.
Will: There are those who go up slow and go down even slower.
Will: But once they hit the bottom, the only way to go is further down.
Will: So they go lower.
  Wait(50);
Will: And... They die.
Will: Some die croaking.
Will: Some go without a peep.
Will: In a bitter fuckin' silence...
  Wait(120);
Will: Some go out in not-so-loving company.
Will: And some... Completely alone.
Will: It really sucks, you know?
Will: It's fucking sad.
  Wait(40);
Will: It's... So sad...
  Wait(120);
Will: It's so sad...
// Play video here.
  Wait(120);
Will: You know... I hate talking about myself.
Shane: It doesn't seem that way... From where I'm sitting.
Shane: But that's not a bad thing, believe me, Will.
Will: No, no, I know.
Will: You're right.
Will: I just say I don't because I'm insecure about it.
Will: The truth is I love talking about myself.
Will: And I love talking about people like me.
Will: Because I'm not speaking for me.
Will: I'm speaking for me, and my brother.

Shane: The one who... Passed away?

Will: Who else?
Will: 'The one who passed away', hell.
Will: Yes, Shane, the one who passed away.
Will: He died alone, unloved, depressed, in silence.
Will: He was that kind of junkie!
Will: And if he was still here... He would tell you the same thing.
Will: He would tell you just how stupid this all this.
Will: Yeah, there are different 'kinds' of us, but it's all fucking absurd.
Will: Because, still, we're all the same.
Will: We're a guilty species, the whole lot of us.
Will: Everyone I have vehemently referred to as a 'junkie' was once free.
Will: But somewhere in his or her life they decided they didn't want that.
Will: For one reason or another, they didn't want their life.
Will: But they don't want to die.
Will: So they decide to live like puppets.
Will: They give their life away thinking the drugs know how to live it better than they do.
Will: With synthetic joy and hope.
Will: It's a deadly sin, for many.
Will: Being addicted is being under voluntary possession.
Will: That's what I believe.
Will: And that's why I relapsed.
Will: I didn't want to be Will anymore.
Will: I wanted to be free again.

 Wait(40);

Shane: Do you still not want to be 'Will'?
Will: I don't know.
Will: I don't fuckin' know.
Will: I certainly don't want to live Will's life, that's for sure.

 Wait(40);

Shane: Why not?
Will: Because Will's exhausted all his options.
Will: He lives a hell.
Will: And I worry about him.
Will: When I use, I feel sorry for him.
Will: And I thank God I'm not him.

 Wait(120);

Shane: You don't have to be the kind of person you're picturing, Will.
Will: When I'm without hope.
Will: When I've become the flailing puppet.
Will: When my only comfort comes from knowing that I am closer to death.
Will: Then, I do.

 Wait(40);

Will: Either way, there's my explanation.
Shane: Well, Will...
Shane: Would you like to know what I think?

Will: I do.
Will: Go ahead.

Shane: I think there's hope for you, Will. I sincerely believe there is.
Shane: There are people here that can help you, I have no doubt of that.
Shane: It's exactly as you say. There are many others like you, and they are all suffering.
Shane: But that's okay, you're anything but alone.
Shane: Very many of them don't die. Many of them recover, and go on to live prosperous and fulfilling lives.
Shane: I believe you are more than capable of doing that as well, Will.

 Wait(200);

Will: Well...

 Wait(120);

Will: Thank you...

 Wait(120);

Will: Thank you...
  
  }
  
stop

So, knowing now there should be no problem at all with the actual dialogue script handling a script with no options, I started a new game and put that exact script in, but took out all the "If" statements as the new game had none of the variables I set in the real one. It seemed to work perfectly, so this leads me to believe there's an issue somewhere in the "If" statements, although I don't see any, and the script if I recall seemed to run fine in the actual room script versus the dialogue script. Very odd.

For organization and convenience, I strongly prefer to keep a lot of my character's interaction in dialogue script. I don't have any options programmed, and strictly have a @S and "stop" at each end of the interaction (which holds several regular game codes as well). However, it seems that they don't work that way, as any time I've tried to launch the game it would always give me an error of "Nested functions not supported". It gives me no particular line, and instead points to the entire dialogue script. This perplexed me for several hours, because there's nothing wrong with the code itself.  It also seemingly did this to only one of my dialogue scripts, and not the others. It was only after deleting it did I see then that it had the same issue with the others too, just didn't say it.

My question is this: Is there a work-around to being able to use dialogue scripts in such a way? My game is almost exclusively based around character interaction, so having to use "cCharacter.Say" codes for everything would be extremely tedious.

Amazing choice of a topic, no wonder so many people are entering this time around. Because I'm still preoccupied with finishing up what was supposed to be my MAGS entry for last month, I won't be able to enter this one, but have already used its topic as a launching point for a possible future game.

Good luck to all the other participants!

In many ways, Duane is a certainly a gem to be found.

I really appreciate it!

Interesting question just popped into my head after reading Noto's post - how many games didn't make it for the MAGS deadline but were developed more and released later anyway?  Basically, how many games may well have never seen the light of day at all if it weren't for MAGS?  (Not even including those that were expanded from an original MAGS game and all the games that did make it out before the deadline.) 

I'd say we owe MAGS for being the driving force for dozens of games being released in addition to the ones that were actually MAGS entries.

I was astounded at just how much I was able to get done with a looming deadline, with the game really flourishing especially in the last week. I imagine there'd be quite a bit, it'd make sense for there to be!

So: how about you release the "MAGS version" of the game as a "beta" or "demo" or whatever and then work on the finer details later? This will also mean you get a lot of feedback from the community in the meanwhile...

It's not necessarily a bad idea, but I thought well and hard on it already and know that's not the right move for me. I realized that if I did that the rushed "MAGS Version" of my game would be different than I envision it to be. It depends on what I'd be creating, but being that I'm making a very personal and serious entry it would need to be as I rightfully intend it. It's not fair to my own art to sacrifice quality for the sake of making a deadline.

And I used to have that same issue, but I'm confident that won't be the case here. For me my issue is keeping a passion going throughout the project, as I'd lose it sometimes and it'd be really hard to get back. I can't see that happening here, and as a whole I think my entire creative process really grew in this month. MAGS was an awesome learning experience.